In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. – John 1:4.
Spiritual Life
However, this is only the beginning of our understanding of what John intends by the use of the word “life” in the Gospel. He is speaking of Christ’s role in creation, in one sense. But this is only the groundwork for the spiritual interpretation of the word that he unfolds in the pages of the Gospel. It is true that John speaks of physical life here, but as the book goes on he speaks increasingly of spiritual life. And the point is that just as Jesus is the source of physical life, so is He the source of the spiritual life that we receive when we believe in Him.
To appreciate the importance of the gift of spiritual life, we must realize first that apart from it we are dead spiritually. Or you might say, we are as unresponsive to God as was the dust of the earth before God breathed His Spirit into it.
We can say this, of course, because God says it. Take the verses from the second chapter of Ephesians for an example. Here Paul writes to the Christians at Ephesus, reminding them that before God made them alive they were totally dead in everything spiritual and were in rebellion against Him. “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” (Ephesians 2:1–6; emphasis mine).
What a past is described in these verses! And what a horrific condition! In our natural state we can do nothing to improve ourselves spiritually. Apart from Christ no man has ever breathed one breath toward God, nor had even one spiritual heartbeat. Man is dead in sin. He needs a new life. That is why we must be born again. Being born again means receiving a new life from God through the Lord Jesus Christ by faith in Him.
One might add here, however, that when the Bible declares that all men are dead spiritually, it does not imply that all are in an identical state of corruption. In his book, In the Heavenlies, Dr. Henry (Harry) A. Ironside points to three instances in the life of Christ that illustrate clearly what the Bible is saying. He writes:
“The beautiful little maid, the daughter of Jairus, had been dead only a few minutes when the blessed Lord reached her father’s house, but she was dead, she was lifeless. Fair to look upon, lovely and sweet, no doubt, in the eyes of her beloved parents, like a beautiful marble statue, but although there was not the corruption that there might have been, she was dead nevertheless. Turn over to Luke’s gospel and you find that as the blessed Lord came to the village of Nain they were carrying a young man out to bury him. He was dead. Dead perhaps a day or two. . . . This young man was dead longer than the little maid, but life was just as truly extinct in her case as in his. Then you have the blessed Lord at the grave of Lazarus. The sisters told Him not to roll the stone away, for their brother had been dead four days and would already be offensive. Corruption had set in, but the Lord Jesus brought new life to that man as well as to the others. In the same way, we are all genuinely dead apart from the life-giving Spirit of Jesus Christ. There may be degrees of corruption so that relatively speaking some men are far less offensive than others. But all men are dead spiritually. All need the divine life.”
Where does that “divine” life come from? It comes from Jesus Christ. He is the life of the world. Because we were dead in our sins, God sent Jesus Christ to give us new life. Because we were guilty of sin, God sent Jesus to be the propitiation for our sins by bearing them in His own body on that cursed tree.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
You must be logged in to post a comment.